Idaho

And welcome to DU, democratXX

I can well imagine that Idaho is difficult now...floating down the wrong fork of the current river of American politics.

I grew up in Idaho Falls, arriving at age 1 and leaving in 1968 after my sophomore year of high school. It was an OK place to live then. My father was a chemical engineer working at what was then called the National Reactor Testing Station, now the Idaho National Laboratory. I like to joke that he worked as a breeder...breeding plutonium from uranium...which is in fact, what he did. Despite being a mostly farming community with a higher Mormon population percentage than Salt Lake City, there were several thousand highly trained technical workers as well. Family friends were mostly associated with Dad's work. I had a whole range of friends from school and other activities. We vacationed at Yellowstone, in the Sawtooths and the Tetons, and at Priest Lake in northern Idaho. Skiing was nearby. The nature connection was great.

I managed to develop a reasonable political view point, mostly through my father's influence - he subscribed to the New Yorker, Natural History, USSR Today, Ebony, Science, and other technical publications. In my early teens I added Ramparts and Garbage. Friends and I staged an 'environmental protest' by staining the foam on the Snake River with RIT dye...not recognizing that, of course, we were adding pollution by dumping that stuff in the water. A friend and I were proud to be photographed gathering signatures downtown against the Anti-Ballistic-Missile defense system - we joked that it was the FBI. I campaigned for Frank Church.

We left in '68 for Chicago when Dad went back to Argonne National Labs. I did a year of high school, then undergrad in the Windy City...wow, what a great music scene. Then to Palo Alto for grad school and a tech startup.

Now, enjoying Oregon on a farm outside Eugene. We have the magical Pete DeFazio as a representative, and two good Senators Merkley and Wyden. Though there have been proposals to be build a North-South fence along the divide of the Cascades, separating the Left coasters from the Right cattle folk, that hasn't been necessary...yet. Must be noted that we are trailing our northern neighbor on marriage equality and marijuana, but we're working on that. Yes, the income (and estate) taxes are high, but so are the benefits...and so are most of the residents of Eugene.

Let me know if you're passing through. DG.